Posts by Zola

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Been There?

It's funny how in 2013 the bean counters at Telefonica thought that selling their UK fixed line broadband business (aka Be Unlimited) to Sky for £180 million was such a good idea.

The O2/Be ADSL2+ service was great, particularly if you were an O2 subscriber as you received a discount - decent download speed, Annex M (2.5Mbps upload), great reliability, excellent customer support (Be Unlimited handled the service and support).

Then it was sold to Sky for chump change, Annex M ended immediately, the speeds dropped overnight and reliability became a repeating issue. They employed the Be Unlimited customer support people but you could tell from talking to them that they knew it was now a total shit show.

Eventually I could stand it now more and moved broadband (and O2 mobile) to BT who were better than Sky, but not as good as Be There. Funnily enough I'm now with Hyperoptic 1Gbps which is run by old Be Unlimited people, so I've come full circle (and 3 for mobile). Both have been excellent.

Anyway that was the end of the O2 triple play, for chump change. And now they're having to get into bed with Virgin Media, which has a very limited network (if you're not covered by Virgin already, you never will be) which limits their future potential. With the debt that both Telfonica and Liberty Global have it's difficult to see where the investment will come from.

Oh what could have been for O2, if Telefonica weren't such utter fsckwits. I really don't see this merger ending well, assuming it goes ahead at all.

Why have the Plod become involved?

Hopefully it is to investigate the financial fraud committed by Corethree after flogging - no doubt for top dollar - their amateur hour software as if it were a professionally developed and secure product.

Re: 202?

> when Openretch start putting fibre in for people with phone lines that arrive overhead.

Don't forget ADSL users stuck on Exchange-only lines for whom Openreach have no fibre migration plans whatsoever - you'd think these users would be a shoe-in for Openreach fibre, particularly when the exchange is less than 200 metres away. But no.

Not that I care any more - the development where I live (Exchange-only ADSL lines, 20Mbps down/1Mbps up) recently had Hyperoptic installed so now I'm on 1Gbps up/down with VoIP telephony for about the same price I was paying BT for a landline and their 20Mbps/1Mbps service. It's like night & day.

Just to remind everyone... it's not a PSU issue, it's a cable issue (caused by the RPi design error).

The irony is that a cheap non-e-marked cable is going to work (regardless of PSU) while an expensive Apple e-marked cable won't work. This is really is not a big deal, just get a cheap non-e-marked cable and you're done.

Buy now, upgrade the CPU later?

At least AMD support their sockets for years, rather than the Intel habit of introducing a new socket with every minor CPU revision which then requires a new motherboard, RAM, maybe even heatsink in addition to the CPU.

iFixit have taken down their teardown at Samsung's request

Samsung are in Cupertino-esque damage limitation mode, but only making things worse for themselves... So you fscked up? Just deal with it - there's no point getting all p1ssy and trying to censor/hide it from the world & dog hoping we'd all forget.

Boeing have finally accepted responsibilty for the two crashes

> The chairman of Boeing acknowledged Thursday for the first time that its new maneuvering system was responsible for two recent plane crashes that killed almost 350 people and apologized to the families and friends of the victims.

Re: Ralph Nader's niece

I watched the Stumo family conference video earlier today and, assuming the two crashes did occur due to the MCAS failing, it seems a bit harsh for the family to now be suing the airline as they are just as much a victim as those who died as they were duped by Boeing and the FAA into believing the aircraft was safe, even after the first Lion Air crash, and that pilots did not require additional training.

As for Rosemount, unless they guaranteed their sensor was safe to use with no redundancy in a safety critical system then again that's harsh, but maybe just part of the legal process, as it's a bit like Ford selling a car with only 3 wheels instead of 4 (but available as an optional safety extra) and suing Pirelli when the car crashes because it's not driveable on 3 wheels when one has a puncture.

It may be that by suing all parties, whether initially justified or not, will ensure that all the evidence - testing data, internal memos, cover-ups, FAA collusion etc. - required to determine justice for the victims and that further accidents are avoided will be revealed.

Wireless charging should not be high-end

The receiver coil costs under $2, much less in volume - probably sub-$. It's a joke that manufacturers use this feature to differentiate high-end products - it just goes to show they're running out of ideas. Or penny-pinching bastards. How long until Qi wireless charging is common on mid-range devices from more innovative manufacturers?

Good grief that voice...

Currently shipping "top of the line" ASUS routers are being shipped with firmware that includes Samba 3.0.33, which is a decade old for crying out loud, riddled with security bugs, and supports only SMB1 (which is being deprecated everywhere, fast). And ASUS have no plans to update their current (let alone legacy) products to a modern, (more) secure version of Samba, such as Samba 4.

You can use third-party firmware alternatives for the ASUS routers that do include a more recent version of Samba 3, which would at least get you SMB2 support, but apparently the devices don't have enough flash storage to allow Samba 4 to be included.

So please, give ASUS routers a very wide berth as ASUS don't give a fsck about basic security, or their users. Alternatively, disable the outdated and insecure ASUS Samba server entirely, and use something else (Raspberry Pi3+?) for your Samba file sharing.

Re: spectacular coverage

> what exactly do you expect the mass media to do?

Watch this Charlie Brooker video featuring a forensic psychiatrist and decide if global wall-to-wall coverage of every mass shooting in America is really the best and only option available to the media outlets.

Mental health issues, inadequate gun control, and the instant "fame" from mass news coverage is a powerful and dangerous combination but at least one of those factors could be addressed fairly quickly, although we know it won't be either of the first two.

Might get one in yellow for my step father

as he keeps losing his phone, currently looking to get him his 3rd phone in 12 months... figuring the yellow might make it easier to find, and the low cost less of an issue if/when he loses it (first two were iDevices).

Nokia also announced a new Nokia 6 with wireless charging for €279. Sold!

Re: Familar pattern

So why bother with Kyro?

It doesn't seem like Kyro is that critical to their mobile roadmap if they can swap out their fully custom design for off-the-shelf IP without any obvious impact on the bottom line, yet it's undoubtedly a damn sight cheaper/faster to use the off the shelf ARM cores.

I always thought Kyro was a case of NIH, and never really justified the additional design cost given the marginal performance gain over stock ARM IP.

At best Kyro is just a dick swinging marketing exercise - no real gain or benefit for the end user, but look how clever we are to design our own stuff.

Re: No wireless charging? No sale.

Too many times I've received a call on a phone charging while tethered to a USB, picked it up and had the phone shoot out of my hands once the cable reaches its full extent. User error? Most certainly. Annoying as hell? Absolutely. USB-C might make charging ever so slightly easier but it's still no match for put down, pick up convenience.

Does wireless charging take longer than a tethered fast charge? Sure, probably. To be honest it's hard to tell as my phone is now almost always fully charged most of the time thanks to having multiple charge plates at home/office, and putting a near empty phone on my bedside cabinet at night I awake to a fully charged phone in the morning as if by magic! Fast charging becomes irrelevant when charging is something you no longer have to even think about (and if I ever did need it, I can always find a cable somewhere).

No wireless charging? No sale.

20 years ago I bought a TiVo Series 1 (still have it, in daily use) and tried to explain to people the convenience of HDD recording, the typical response was "Why would I want that when I can just put a tape in my machine?" It only took them another 5-10 years until Sky (I'm in the UK, after stabbing TiVo in the back) "invented" HDD recording and for the penny to finally drop among the masses.

Similarly, a lot of people just don't "get" wireless charging, but it really is so much more convenient and puts an end to "battery angst". Once you've tried it, why would you want to go back to fumbling around with USB connectors?

And for that reason, any device that can't be bothered to include the £2 coil for a wireless charging receiver loses my entire business/interest. Which is a shame, as the Nokia device is quite attractive in all other respects.

A replaceable battery would also have been nice, but I can understand from a design point of view that that is a trickier proposition.

Early Purley Xeon vs. AMD EPYC benchmarks at Anandtech

Purley is best for very large databases and vectorisable HPC code (due to the Xeons superior L3 cache latency), while AMD EPYC is simply great for everything else and whips Intels arse on price/performance.

Why are Seagate being fingered for this? It's not their SNAFU!

This is 100% Cisco's fsck up because it was Cisco that assumed rather than erred on the side of caution/professionalism by configuring the drives on receipt from their supplier - or on boot up, fancy that! - with the correct parameters/characteristics required to reliably perform the job they will be doing.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with what Seagate did, or did not do!

Re: Epyc 7351P @ $700

@analyzer: What I'm getting at - assuming these Epyc prices are accurate - is that this gives a ballpark figure for for the cost of a 16c/32t Threadripper. I can't see AMD pricing a Threadripper (at the same Epyc 7351P base frequency) higher than an Epyc 7351P, particularly as the Epyc 7351P includes a range of technologies that won't be included/enabled in Threadripper. Perhaps if the Threadripper is clocked significantly higher than the Epyc 7351P (while still maintaining sensible thermals) then it might allow AMD to charge a slightly higher premium, but not much more.

@John Pombrio: I wouldn't have thought 2.4GHz x 32 threads (Epyc 7351P or Threadripper) would be too slow for a HEDT, maybe slow for a gaming rig, but for a headless build system that spends all day compiling it could be pretty sweet!

Re: Which graphics?

The latest 375.26/340.101 nvidia drivers don't yet build with the 4.10 kernel, and need patching (as usual). Funny how the video drivers from the other vendors (AMD/Intel) avoid the pitfalls that befall nvidia with every major new kernel. It's usually the same memory management API changes every time, too. Although this time the changed HOTPLUG_CPU support clobbers them as well.

Can't be long until he tries the Aspergers defence...

Re: Almost bought a QL

> Don't think so. There's lots of differences between 68K and VAX at a fundamental level, eg. on VAX most registers can be used for most purposes, not so easy on the 68K.

Although I'm talking about orthogonality at the assembler level - the 68K had many different opcodes for implementing the various instructions (unlike the VAX) so yes at a fundamental level the hardware implemented very different approaches but as far as the assembler programmer was concerned the 68K assembly language (ie. which is what I mean by the instruction set in this context) is very similar to that of the VAX.

Re: Almost bought a QL

Yes, the very basic windowed GUI was certainly lacking, but the underpinnings (IO channels, job control, pre-emptive multitasking) were all certainly far more impressive, particularly when it was done in 48K.

Re: Almost bought a QL

> Don't think so. There's lots of differences between 68K and VAX at a fundamental level, eg. on VAX most registers can be used for most purposes, not so easy on the 68K.

That's exactly what orthogonal means. You could use the 68K and VAX data or address registers as source or destinations (in any combination) with pretty much any relevant instruction. Try doing that with 6502 or x86.

Re: Almost bought a QL

I learned to programme MC68K assembler on a Sinclair QL (and BCPL, then C). Then went into my first job where I programmed VAXes in Macro-32, and it turned out the VAX had a very similar instruction set to MC68K - both are/were wonderful (for the time, circa 1988) modern 32-bit orthogonal instruction sets. Presumably Motorola based their 68K instruction set on the VAX as they were that similar. Things would have been a lot harder for me if I'd learned the horrors of 6502 or, god forbid x86, so in that sense I don't regret buying the QL at all!

On the other hand that keyboard, those microdrives... eugh! The fully pre-emptive mutitasking QDOS operating system with SuperBASIC (all in 48K ROM, in 1984) was quite an impressive achievement though. I'd love to see a proper write up on QDOS with input from the original author Tony Tebby.

Re: Layer limit?

Stacking more than 64 layers is proving troublesome due to alignment issues with the through silicon vias (TSV) - each layer in the stack has to be perfectly aligned with the layer above and below. The more layers, the greater the difficulty of achieving the required TSV alignment. One solution is to combine two 64 layer stacks, creating a psuedo 128 layer stack - this should be relatively easy to achieve and increase yields.

Unless ARM need investment I don't see what Softbank is bringing to the table. The risk is that when one of the many other Softbank business units is haemorrhaging cash and dragging down the bottom line, ARM could be sacrificed.

ARM losing its independence sounds like a very bad trade. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple end up as owners of ARM (again) longer term, and that will be very bad news for everyone. Seriously, seriously bad.

Re: Internal PS? - what about an "internal Pi3"?

One can't help but wonder when we'll see a monitor with a built-in Pi3 board.

It would be a piece of cake if they added the SODIMM socket for the Compute Module (currently using the RPi1 SoC but pin-compatible and so upgradeable when the CM3 is launched). Monitors have pretty much all the IO ports (USB, audio) required for the Compute Module to become a full computer, so the cost would be pennies (RJ45 port for wired Ethernet and the SODIMM for CM). The CM could even be optional, as it's as easy as a stick of RAM to install.

Connect a keyboard, mouse, network (a $2 USB dongle would enable WiFi) to the monitor, select the Compute Module as an AV Input and crack on...

I wonder if it would be possible to add additional Citrix/RPi devices for each additional HDMI display, then it would just be a software/configuration issue and you could have as many displays as you need. Keyboard and mouse would be connected to the "master" device with all the additional screens connected to the "slave" (display only) devices.

SourceForge is still a thing?

Who knew.

Sorry, too little way, waaaayyy too late. SourceForge became a joke years ago, killing DevShare won't make a bind bit of difference. Any projects still on SourceForge tells you all you need to know about those projects - ether no longer maintained, or maintained by developers prone to making really bad development choices.

BT ADSL, South London has been fine all day

Surely it doesn't matter who dobbed them in

if Qualcomm are guilty, which apparently they are, and have been found to be, on numerous occasions.

If Qualcomm don't want their competitors dobbing them in to the competition authorities because of anti-competitive licensing, then don't make your partners sign anti-competitive licences for Qualcomm products.